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Can Virtual Reality Help Cure PTSD?

Chris Merkle had no intention of revisiting the traumatic events he experienced in war. After three tours in Iraq and four in Afghanistan, there was plenty to process – but his concern was moving forward, not revisiting the past. “I’m a Marine,” he says now, from his home in Los Angeles. “We’re taught to do our jobs, to accomplish our mission. We’re not going to sit around and talk about our feelings.” He’d come here, to Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo’s lab at the Institute of Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, after months of working with a therapist with little result. “She was a great therapist,” Merkle says, “but she couldn’t do anything if I wasn’t willing to talk about my experience. And I just wasn’t.” (continued)

That’s an interesting question, I’m not sure what the answer is. I probably don’t know enough about how schizophrenia works–I know it can help with behavioral things (they are using it with people on the autism spectrum to help them practice recognizing social cues in job interviews, stuff like that). I don’t about schizophrenia but I’m interested in looking into it!

Katie MacBride is a writer and the Associate Editor of Anxy Magazine. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, New York Magazine, and The Establishment. She is a contributing editor for Book Riot and writes an advice column about addiction for Paste Magazine. Follow her on Twitter: @msmacb